


A Chill in the Cosmos

by mechafly



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Evil Space Boyfriends, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, M/M, redemption (sort of)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:29:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5691256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechafly/pseuds/mechafly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux and Kylo Ren's shuttle is captured trying to escape the destruction of Starkiller planet. They are taken, alive, to the heart of the Resistance. </p><p>There, the pair must put aside their mutual loathing and stay alive by convincing the Resistance that they're star-crossed lovers who have abandoned the First Order. </p><p>It's a tall order at the best of times, but what happens when the pretence starts to hit too close to home?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Plan

In the dark and the cold, the endless night of space, General Hux of the First Order comes awake face down in the belly of a foreign spaceship.

He rolls over with a pained grunt. Kylo Ren looms over him.

"What happened?  _Get us out._ "

His head is against the wall. He is unable to stand. He is unable to sit up. He's injured, that much is clear. In fact, every inch of him is on metaphorical fire, and he's rather surprised to be alive at all, considering the mad firefight that went down when Resistance pilots boarded their shuttle off the dying Starkiller Base planet. A spike of useless rage goes through him at the thought of that beautiful planet disintegrating into nothingness, taking all his hard work with it. He'd had plans for that planet.  _He'd had fucking plans for that planet._

His hands are loosely cuffed but he can barely move, regardless of any restraints. It's a struggle to keep his eyes open and fixed on Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren reaches for his face, and Hux flinches before gazing up at where black cuffs of an unfamiliar, eerie hard material enclose each wrist. Hux lets his breath out in a pained hiss. They've been captured by stray Resistance pilots lucky enough to have been carrying some Force dampeners on them? Weapons from the last remains of the Galactic Empire? What are the odds? Astronomical, unless someone was clever enough to anticipate their escape in a First Order-marked top-class shuttle on the back end of the planet. Hux curses inwardly. His plans are much better than this. His plans are generally foolproof, but his plans don't generally need to take into account a ridiculous showy battle between Force warriors in the snowy forests of a planet literally disintegrating, and the results thereof. At least, Hux supposes, he is relatively alive and intact. And Kylo Ren is the same, for the attention of the Supreme Leader.

"So we break out. You can move, can't you? Or we infuence the pilots, manipulate them into thinking we're escaping. Turn them off course, turn off power to the shuttle, release the air vents, find some weapons, anything. There's only two of them and they were both young." Hux grits his teeth around each word, the pain threatening to overwhelm his determination to stay conscious. Kylo Ren's terrible at coming up with a strategy, judging by literally everything Hux has ever seen him do, and there's no one else. It has to be him. 

Kylo Ren is looking up at the ceiling of the bay, his long throat exposed. "I overheard the two of them when I awoke. We're on a course straight for the Resistance base. They're not taking any chances with us. We'll be there in less than an hour. They're not even going to speak to us before we're taken to the General."

"Damn it, Ren! It is _imperative_ that no First Order secrets get out, not after a defeat of this scale."

"They'll get it out of us one way or another. They have Luke Skywalker on their side."

Hux's eyes trace Kylo Ren pacing back and forth, a furious whirl of agitation and nerves as he always is. That messy wound on his side leaks blood but every so often he slams one of those infernal hands into his side as if to agitate the pain. For what purpose, Hux cannot begin to imagine. He feels sick just looking at the man, but that's not an unfamiliar sensation.

"They're taking us to the Resistance? Then we convince the Resistance to trust us. It's obvious." Hux's voice is raw and dry. He wishes theResistance scum had been polite enough to shackle Kylo Ren to a post to stop his infernal pacing, but presumably the Resistance were sure they had nothing to fear from Kylo Ren without the Force. A single locked door, an utterly empty room without the slightest crevice, and they've been left helpless.

"That's an idiotic idea," Ren growls, pacing everywhere for a way out like a caged animal. But Hux's mind is working as coldly calculating as ever, and of the two of them, Hux knows he'll be the one to come up with the right answer, the best possible path.

"No, no, it's brilliant. We gain their trust and get right to the heart of the Resistance, and burn them from the inside out. It's the perfect plan." Ren turns to gaze at him, and Hux feels with mounting certainty the rightness of the plan. "We slip them a few inconsequential secrets about the Order to prove our loyalty... and squirrel out all their own, before staging an escape. We lead the might of the First Order to their planet and annihilate the Resistance forever."

Hux can already see himself decorated, the greatest hero of the war, statues erected in his honour, the saviour of the First Order. He will be greater than the Imperialists of Old, greater even than Vader himself.

Ren's angular face wears a growing frown. A bloody scar gapes on his face, an open wound. "That... will never work."

"It will." Hux is cold and clear and grinning in anticipated victory. He huffs a laugh and stops craning his neck to look at Ren, sure that he has the man's attention. "Think about it. Observe how quickly they trusted that renegade trooper. A stranger in their midst, and they brought him straight to the heart of their pathetic movement before the day was over. They're soft and gullible as lambs to the slaughter." 

Kylo Ren stands over him, a dark impossibly tall shape. "No. He was my father."

No-one says anything. The silence turns slowly ugly. "Who was?"

"Han Solo."

Whatever else is meant to be forthcoming, such as an explanation for this madness, is swallowed up by the warring emotions written large across Kylo Ren's arms and shoulders. His breathing is heavy and fast.

Hux looks away, trying to gather his thoughts back up by sheer willpower alone. "But..." He has nothing he can say. It occurs to him with a blinding flash of intuition that the General of the Resistance is Kylo Ren's mother. Han Solo, known collaborator of the Resistance and spouse to its General. Kylo Ren's mother. His _mother_. His _dear mummy_. A breathless, silent laugh escapes him and he moans in pain as it agitates his wounds.

Kylo Ren looks down at him with an ugly frown.

"You killed Solo aboard Starkiller base, correct?" Ren nods, suspicious. "Fine. Good. A most excellent victory for the First Order. Just don't mention it to Organa, yes?"

 _Your mother,_ his brain adds, unhelpfully. Hux is on the verge of cackling hysterically at the situation he's found himself in, that the world has found itself in.

It is a cosmic family squabble which has involved the entire galaxy and billions of lives have been lost, destroyed or maimed by this disagreement between... co-religionists. Magicians, really. Monks and knights. Fantasists. This is why the world needs order, Hux reflects, not an unusual thought for him to have over the course of the day. The world needs the First Order. 

"Some of them got away. The girl. That trooper. And a wookie. They saw everything." Kylo Ren reports sullenly.

"Brilliant," Hux mutters, closing his eyes against waves of pain. "Just wonderful. Look - just say you regret the whole thing. Tell them your remorse has pulled you back to their side." Hux feels the shape of the lie grow in his head, not noticing Kylo Ren's sudden ominous stillness. "Yes, we claim that the love you secretly bore for your father is haunting you, and--"

" _I never loved him_." Kylo Ren is too close to Hux. His breathing is erratic. Hux can see the whites of his eyes. Hux's muscles freeze in terror for a few seconds but Ren steps back. He watches Kylo Ren the way a deer watches its predator, in hushed silence.

But then Kylo Ren switches, calm, back straight, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair.

Hux has a sinking feeling that perhaps the disastrous day - murdering his father and a battle which left him with laser burns all over his body at the edge of an icy precipice - has affected Kylo Ren's already precarious stability more severely than he'd realised.

"Alright," Hux manages to get out. His throat feels like he's being strangled, even though Kylo Ren isn't using the Force - can't use the Force.

Kylo Ren intones, low and deep. "The Light Side of the Force is foolishness. It is weakness. It is peace. It is passivity of the worst kind dressed up as contentment. Calmness. Bonds. Humanity. Friendship. Love." He breaks off to stare to one side, as if someone has interrupted him, but there's no one else in this damn medical bay except Hux. "She'll never believe I have returned to the side of the Light. Never. Not now." His voice is almost sorrowful without that mask of his, which is deeply disconcerting for Hux to realise.

But like a light switching on, Hux has an idea. He lifts his head to meet Kylo Ren's gaze. "Not even if you spin her the story of how you've been seduced to the side of the Light by the forbidden love you inadvertently feel for your irresistible comrade?"

Kylo Ren frowns at him with the nonplussed confusion of a put-out teenager. "What comrade?" Hux smirks. "Oh no. Never. No."

"Come on. What other option is there? The fact that you're-- that you're _Han Solo's_ \--" He can't get the words out, such is the absurdity of them, and the look Kylo Ren is giving him immediately makes him change tack. "Look, the fact of your _recent revelation_." Hux spits, sneering. "Does _not_ weaken my plan. In fact, it makes it stronger. It's perfect, beyond perfect. You are the General Organa's only living child. She will be _desperate_ to believe that you have returned to her side, to see the Light in you. No more so than now, reeling from her recent loss, celebrating her bittersweet victory over my mighty Starkiller Base. For her prodigal son to return? Why, she'll believe that all her prayers have been answered. When in truth, it will be her doom which has arrived at her door."

Kylo Ren's head is hanging. He's a dark shape on a dark spaceship. "Nobody in their right minds will ever believe that you and I are anything other than the bitterest of enemies."

Hux nods to himself. "We'll just have to put on a show, won't we? They are the Resistance, and we are the leaders of the First Order. They will invite us in with open arms and we, in turn, _we_ will gut their pathetic Resistance from the inside."

 


	2. An Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> General Leia Organa of the Resistance is deeply, deeply unimpressed.

Leia's an old woman. She's been at peace with that fact for a long time, but nothing makes it quite so hard-hitting as the haste her feet make as she enters the flight hangar and the eagerness with which is watches the battle-worn fighter jet open up to reveal two pilots carefully leading the prisoners down the gangplank.

And there he is, the reports are true - her son, injured, shackled, scarred. Despite her resolve, her eyes take in hungrily the changes in his face, how he's grown, matured, his strong, sharp features the hardened ones of a man. It's the first time Leia has seen her son's face as an adult.

He looks like his father, she thinks, but he has his grandmother's colouring, her freckled skin, her brilliant brown eyes. Or perhaps she's just going into her dotage, seeing goodness and beauty where there is none, seeing Han because Han is gone and all that's left of him is the son they raised and lost together.

Perhaps all that's really there is his mad grandfather.

Her son doesn't back as she looks at him. A burn twists the beloved young features she remembers in her nightly dreams, as if the Dark Side has disfigured him physically as well as mentally, torquing him into something beyond recognition.

The other prisoner has been identified on the flight over as General Hux, the very same man who ordered the destruction of so much of the New Republic with his infernal Starkiller device. He's a deranged creature for sure, and Leia doesn't disguise the naked disgust that colours her expression when she looks him over. Hux meets her gaze squarely, in marked contrast to her own son. A straight-backed, eerily pale reptile of a man, his eyes gleam but his expression is unmoving, unmoved. His papery skin is sweat-slicked. The pilots reported that he'd been injured severely in the firefight. Her own order had saved him from death. It was for the greater good only that she'd had him brought alive. Hux was too great a source of knowledge to be allowed to die, no matter how raw the wound of the merciless slaughter of so many of their friends, allies, an innocent billion citizens of the New Republic. Leia watches this monster cast his eyes slantwise up at her son before meeting her gaze once more. She promises, silently, that he will face justice for his crimes.

She can't bear to look at Ben - she needs to stop thinking of him as Ben, but she suspects she never will - not again. The Force hasn't stopped screaming since Han's lifeless fall into the great, black hole that seems to resemble Hell in her mind, nor has the gaping wound of the New Republic's passed souls been healed.

Leia gives the command to the officer beside her. "Take them to the interrogation chambers and give notice to the Jedi Master that the two prisoners been positively identified. Prepare them for him. We keep them alive - only until their minds have been mined of all information of us to the Resistance." Her voice is as cold as space. She watches with some satisfaction the First Order General's features grow dismayed with every word.

"Wait!"

"You dare to issue commands to me?" Leia turns on Hux, hands behind her back. She's interested to hear what platitudes the enemy has to offer, what final token words about the might of the Dark Side - because in the end it's always the Dark Side, whatever name it decides to adopt with every new skirmish - before Luke comes to Resistance base and scrambles his brain.

"General Organa, I am not your enemy," Hux says steadily, his eyes flitting back and forth between her and her son. "And neither is Kylo Ren. We have turned against the First Order."

Her son says nothing, not looking at either of them, as if he's on another planet entirely.

"A bold claim." Leia allows her lip to curl. "Considering you yourself injured my pilots as they boarded your ship. Considering you come here against your will, as prisoners. Considering the billions of unknowing citizens massacred at your hands not a day ago. We'll see what Luke Skywalker makes of your loyalties," she spits.

Hux's ghostly face creases and turns ugly. "Your pilots didn't identify themselves to us. But that's not the point. The point is, I, that is to say, your son and I, we're here to help you. We want to fight by your side _against_ the First Order. Kylo Ren wants to rejoin the--"

"Get them out of my sight!" Leia commands furiously, unable to hear another word. She hates the way her voice is the croaking old voice of a woman at the end of a long life full of bitter regrets. As the two of them are dragged away, stumbling, she snaps commands to Lieutenant Brance. "Separate them. Have them interrogated. A initial questioning before we get word out to Luke. Get their stories out of them. Briefing in an hour."

The interrogation must begin immediately, because even though Leia bandies Luke's name about like a magic spell, she doubts her brother can be of practical use. Part of Leia believes he can never return to their world. The weight of the tragedy which befell him so many years ago has crushed him. She sometimes thinks of Luke as a memory rather than someone really alive, even as the young scavenger girl Rey makes her way to him, their last bastion of hope.

Their last hope, because she refuses to believe that what the errant General claims can be in any way true.

Leia's too hard-hearted to see hope where she used to, after several lifetime's worth of death, betrayal and regret. The one thing she has left to offer her son is not hope, but the mercy of a clean ending. And once he's gone, Leia will put both of them to rest, the man she once loved and their son, in her memories, and she will go through the rest of her life remembering them only as the shadows, on the wall, of ghosts long departed.


	3. Interrogation Transcripts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux weaves a tale of star-crossed lovers running from their dark masters. 
> 
> It is not, strictly speaking, as such, the truth.

**EXTRACT FROM: TRANSCRIPT OF INTERROGATION #12182015**

 

OFFICER X. C. ALMIRA - RESISTANCE

GENERAL HUX OF THE FIRST ORDER - ALLIANCE UNCERTAIN

TRANSCRIPTOR DROID OHCU-38

 

 

OFFICER: You understand that you were captured by Resistance forces and that you are now on Resistance base?

GENERAL HUX: Oh yes. In fact, this is exactly where I wish to be. My comrade and I had already made the decision to defect from the First Order on Starkiller base.

O: What do you know of what happened to Kylo Ren, as you call him, on the planet?

H: He was in a battle. He was defeated. Injured. I used a tracker to find Ren and abandoned the planet with the intention of communicating with the Resistance.

O: Strange. Our pilots report your shuttle was running as far as it could get, not hailing the Resistance forces on the intercoms, or--

H: --at that moment, Officer, we had to run. The numbers of the First Order were too great. We agreed to get as far away from the First Order as possible, then find a way to open communications with the Resistance to signal our new loyalties. To return Kylo Ren to his homeland. Happily, you came to us first. Even though I didn't come out of the meeting unscathed, as you can well see.

O: You claim to have renounced the First Order. Why?

H: Because of Kylo Ren. The First Order made me do terrible things. Part of me enjoyed doing them. That's how the First Order twists you, shapes you into something evil. I never thought there'd be any escape for me. Before I met Kylo Ren.

O: Kylo Ren, the war criminal, responsible for the slaughter of countless lives?

H: It's not just me who's done terrible things, or who wants to atone. He's your own General's son. Can you really believe there's no good in him?

O: Why now, General? Why not before your wanton destruction of the New Republic?

H: The Dark Side is turning Kylo Ren into something unrecognisable. I'd never had the opportunity to escape before, but with the chaos following the end of the battle at Starkiller base, it was the only chance we'd ever get. Would you believe I was inspired by the frankly daring escape of that stormtrooper, FN-2187?

O: You speak of saving Kylo Ren.

H: I'm not... impartial when it comes to Kylo Ren. Where is he? Is he recovering?

O: His injuries were less severe than yours.

H: I meant his mind. I found him dying on that planet speaking as if something was tearing him apart. His mind was fracturing.

O: What is the nature of your relationship with Kylo Ren?

H: We are deeply in love.

O: In love?

H: Deeply.

O: How did this occur?

H: A great many men are afraid of Kylo Ren. They see him as a monstrosity whose name should not be spoken. The mask gives him the appearance of something inhuman, but underneath it he's a man like any other. We worked together closely. I came to know him. He is volatile, ruled by his emotions, too strong-willed to submit to the proper command structure befitting an officer of the military. He's foolish. Even then I could see that he was an outsider. I loathed him, but that emotion eventually became something rather different. We became intimate. Fraternisation amongst the ranks of the First Order is punishable by death, naturally. My attachment to Kylo Ren turned me against the Order, but I had to play the part to protect him. The punishments for traitors meted out by the First Order - and by the Dark Side - make death look like the kindest of blessings. There was no escape, no solace, except in one another's arms. Until now.

 

**END OF EXTRACT**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**TRANSCRIPT OF INTERROGATION #12182016**

 

OFFICER X. C. ALMIRA - RESISTANCE

PRISONER: LORD KYLO OF THE REN (FORMERLY BEN SOLO) - ALLIANCE UNCERTAIN

TRANSCRIPTOR DROID OHCU-38

 

**TRANSCRIPT RECORDS ARE VOID**

**REASON GIVEN: THE PRISONER REMAINED SILENT FOR THE DURATION OF THE SESSION.**

 

**END OF TRANSCRIPT**

 


	4. Mission Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux has a job ahead of him convincing the leader of the Resistance that he's a secret good guy. He's not helped by an unstable Kylo Ren.

 

Hux has never seen a Jedi with his own two eyes, but the earthen-coloured robes Kylo Ren's wearing makes him look like one.

He looks like a drawing of a Jedi which Hux saw once during a mission. It was scrawled on the hut wall of some out-of-galaxy sand warriors during a night-time raid. A quiet race, they'd run the misfortune of not bowing to the First Order when they'd had the chance, and the decision had been given to make an example of their little civilisation. He'd burned their entire system of villages down, one after the next, and efficiently disposed of every adult and child.

He doesn't remember a single one of their faces as well as he remembers the generous promotion he'd received after.

But somehow it seems that scrawled, primitive drawing of the robed figure had stuck. The Jedi's face was hidden in the show of its robe, but its hand was outstretched towards him, as if in greeting, or in pardon.

It was engulfed in flames and burned along with everything else.

The Resistance might have dressed the man like a Jedi in some vain hope, but Kylo Ren's gaze when it snaps to Hux is the fiery red-eyed stare of a madman.

He crosses the small empty interrogation chamber. Ren has a look with which Hux is intimately familiar after countless instances of flagrant property destruction aboard the Finalizer. But there's nothing to break in this pathetic little room. Kylo stalks towards him.

Hux is not a man given to fear, but he freezes. Which is the wrong thing to do, it turns out, because Kylo Ren swings at him blindingly fast, right across the face with all the weight of his longer, leaner body. Hux goes down like a ton of bricks and tries to come back up fighting, but Kylo Ren has a slight height advantage and he uses it all to pin Hux down by his throat. The breath is slowly choked out of him by a pair of large, strong, firm-knuckled hands. Hux grins. All he can see are Kylo Ren's insane red-rimmed eyes. He looks as if he's been weeping. He looks as if he's been murdering. "Don't --" Hux wheezes. "Kill -- me."

Hux feels the last sip of his air close up and his vision crackles. It's so fucking ironic that he's going to be killed by Kylo Ren of all people in some empty Resistance room in the backwater of the galaxy. After all the terrible, glorious things he's done, after the way he's changed the world and destroyed a world, it hardly seems appropriate.

Eventually he realises he's not dead. "--the fuck," Hux gasps through pained breaths as life rushes back into him.

"The Light," Kylo hisses right into his face. His hands are still around Hux's throat, as if he's just toying with him, as if any minute now he'll start strangling again but he just had one final thing he'd like Hux to listen to in the meantime. The man hasn't brushed his teeth in a while, Hux observes, inexplicably angry. " _The Light is in me_."

Hux's brain feels like it's about to implode inside his skull when he closes his eyes, sparks flying behind them. He can feel Kylo Ren's hot breath on him. It occurs to him that they're supposed to be acting like - like star-crossed lovers, or something. He's spun a whole tale and weaved it across the stars. It's the tale of their world-changing romance and Kylo Ren has ruined it by strangling him to death. He laughs inwardly. It's hopeless. "You bastard." Kylo Ren's weight on him is crushingly painful on all his injuries.

His eyes are closed so he feels more than sees Kylo Ren's hands slowly uncoiling from his throat. "I need to get out of here," Kylo Ren mutters. "I need these monstrous devices  _off me._ "

Hux closes his eyes and takes a few more breaths. "You're not going anywhere without me. Why don't you calm the fuck down."

Kylo Ren's hands pull in his hair, dragging his head forward. Hux blinks stars out of his eyes. He can't see straight. "What do you want? A kiss?" Kylo Ren's voice is low, scratched, mocking. He has this terrifying intensity which is at once absorbing and utterly ridiculous. Hux is too light-headed to look away. "I could snap your neck so easily like this. It would be so, so terribly insignificant."

Hux kicks out at him, ineffectually, struggling. "A kiss would be a start, _darling_. Fucking hell. Are you truly going mad? Do you always want to kill _the people you love?_ "

Kylo Ren clutches his face in the grip of a large, powerful hand. "I didn't love him."

"I didn't mention him, but he's the first person you thought of. What does that say about you?" Hux spits, seeing red. "You see, Kylo Ren, the difference between you and me is that I killed my father too, but I was quite confident in my assessment that my father was the _devil_ , I enjoyed every second of his dying and his brief knowledge that it was at my hands. Whereas you, Kylo Ren, it's not quite working out so well, is it? Good thing Mummy's here for you to talk it through."

Kylo Ren howls in rage and cracks Hux's head against the ground, hard, once.

Hux whimpers, then laughs. Worth it, he's thinking. And then there's memories welling up from some cracked safe deep in his brain. And then he's laughing again. And once he starts laughing like this, he can't seem to stop. He simply can't stop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Officer Almira finishes her report. The board is gaping at her in shock and Leia turns her fierce glare on the officer. "You expect me to believe that my son is fraternising with that monster?"

The officer nods in acceptance of the question. "With all due respect, General, your son is a war criminal. It's not the morality of the thing which is under question here."

Captain Wrexley harrumphs. "Hell, maybe these two fucking murderers are in love. Maybe they go on dates and drown puppies while holding hands or somethin'," he quips, to nervous chuckles all around, which fade as Leia casts a steely gaze around the table.

"I want to speak to him," Leia snaps immediately.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea. He's unstable." Leia frowns. "We have released the prisoners into limited custody. The plan is to observe both the prisoners. Give them the idea that we believe them. See whether they're tempted to to stage a breakout if they're both mobile and only lightly guarded. Tempt them into revealing their true loyalties."

"So," says Wrexley. "We have to watch them? If those two creeps jump each other the moment they're alone, we have to watch the entire thing to determine how loved-up they are?"

"We need to determine the truth. Both prisoners are extremely dangerous, and the Force dampeners placed on Kylo Ren cannot be relied on forever. The First Order have amassed the full might of their armies to search for the two of them. Their gaze has not turned our way, yet, but we could be under attack at any time, facing the possibility of an invasion or worse."

Admiral Statura coughs. "So what has your directive unearthed so far?"

Officer Almira's expression is impassive as she summarises the contents of the day's report.

Even Wrexley is gaping at her. "They were left alone for five seconds and Kylo Ren beat the shit out of the other one and then tried to strangle him with his bare hands? I dunno much about those First Order maniacs but that don't sound like a great romance to me!"

"The records of their exchange suggest that there was more at play here than is immediately apparent. They also indicate that Kylo Ren is having a mental breakdown of some kind, leading to... unstable behaviour. Our tests have verified as much. As for the rest, we hope to determine it as soon as we can."

Major Ematt pipes up. "And if there's any truth to what they're saying? If the First Order's top General and the only known Force user outside of Luke Skywalker join the Resistance? What then?"

There's a subdued silence. People around the table are hushed with the possibility of an end to the war, a real end. Ematt looks at Leia. "Not even mentioning the personal involvement the General has in this matter." A few made a mark of respect for the passing of Han Solo, while others averted their eyes from Leia at the knowledge of Kylo Ren's terrible betrayal.

There were further briefings presented by other members of the council, but as Leia sat back in her chair she barely heard them, her mind swirling already with too many thoughts to control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You have been summoned to an audience with the General," says the officer neutrally. Her cap is pulled low over her face. Hux sizes her up but can't read anything off her. He's been recovering from his injuries - from yesterday's firefight with the Resistance and from today's fistfight with the resident madman Kylo Ren - in the quiet Resistance medical bay. It is blessedly empty. He's been put on enough pain medication to keep him happy for weeks, which is excellent, because he's sure the pain would be excruciating otherwise. "As has Kylo Ren."

"Ah." Hux keeps the mask he's wearing as an expression as blank as possible. He's embarrassed that he's too injured to walk with his back as straight as he normally does as he's led down stone corridors, but he supposes nobody from his regiment is here to see him. He feels a spike of familiar anger at Kylo Ren for punching him in the face earlier, of all the outrageous, ill-advised, monstrously pointless acts. Hux's face wasn't a spaceship, for God's sake.

Resistance base is full of light and primarily made of stone. Hux can't determine anything about the planet he's on from the tone of the light - which is golden and amber in hue - or the particularities of stone - some kind of limestone variant. He's been kept safely away from anything resembling strategic and military offices. There's nothing but kitchen droids and medical droids and hospitality droids hissing around, making plenty of noise and seemingly doing very little. Hux is deposited at the end of a long wooden table and the officer promptly stations herself outside the door.

The room is faced with several high, glass windows. Hux contemplates how far he'd get if he were to jump out of one and start running. Sunlight pours into the room and against the light, Kylo Ren is an awkwardly lanky dark shape.

"Looking forward to seeing Mother again?" Hux supposes there's no point in beating around the bush.

"What exactly do you think's going to happen?" Kylo Ren turns slowly, ominously. "I've destroyed so many lives, personally. If the Resistance is smart, they'll have me executed before the day is out. While these restraints still hold. While they still can."

"Mm, but I don't think they're very smart, do you?" Hux taps his unbound hands along the long table. He might have lost the handcuffs but he's in no fit state to start running anywhere. His wrists seem awfully white and bare against the dark grain of the pseudo-wood. Hux has been forced to wear the light linen robes of a commoner and it leaves him bare in the strangest places. He's naked without the might of his strictly pressed, tightly belted military regalia.

He goes over to Kylo Ren's side and realises the man is looking up at the fighter jets departing the nearby airbase. Watching the small jets drifting into the wide, blue sky until finally their tiny white forms disappear in a spot of light makes something in Hux's throat tighten. God, but they both need to get back to the First Order and its clean, regimental lines, information-gathering be damned.

As if Kylo Ren's thinking the same thing, he puts a large-knuckled brown hand on Hux's shoulder. Kylo's skin feels strangely hot through the too-thin fabric. His grip is too tight, a little painful, but Hux supposes that an outsider looking on them wouldn't immediately notice that detail. "Your face has... looked better," Kylo says with a neutral glance on his pointed features.

"If that was supposed to be a compliment, we have a lot of work to do." He can't help joke. It's as if the mask of the General has been stripped away leaving the mere husk of a man. Hux is still looking up at the wide open sky and the haze of hot summer air which shimmers in the blistering atmosphere. "But if it's an apology I suppose I accept." He jumps a little when Kylo Ren's mouth suddenly appears at his ear, then realises Kylo's trying to avoid any surveillance in the room. Good thought.

"How do you expect to convince these people to trust you? You're a murderer," Kylo whispers, his voice husky. Hux pulls out of Kylo's tightening grip and grabs Kylo's chin.

They stare at each other for a second. Hux is a little disconcerted: he's never been this close to Kylo Ren and the knowledge of the soft freckles which dot his gently tanned face and the way his thick eyelashes frame his eyes feels somewhat dangerous, like they won't be able to return to their easily hostile working relationship after this. It doesn't matter. None of it matters if it's in the aid of the mission of the First Order. Their mouths are terribly close, which is ideal for the purpose of avoiding electronic surveillance. "I'll try not to say anything too murderous and reveal my true colours, shall I?" Hux murmurs against his lips. "Promise not to kill your dear old mum with a broken chair leg?"

Kylo Ren's mouth quirks, perhaps bitterly, Hux is too close to tell, and he bites Hux on the lip. Hux jerks a bit at the sting but Kylo doesn't proceed to tear his face off or anything, so he relaxes. "Are you... kissing me?" he enquires in between a second bite, and a third. "Have you ever kissed anyone before?"

"I loathe you," Kylo Ren says, very low, before biting him again.

"I know." Another bite. "Hm. This is preferable to the destruction of proprietary, expensive, irreplaceable spaceship technology. And to being punched in the face."

"Shut up."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leia can still remember when Ben was just a small kid. The world had seemed very innocent back then, though she's sure she wouldn't have remembered it as such at the time. She'd been so sure that any kid of hers and Han's, raised with Luke's good influences, with old Obi-Wan's kindly ghost watching over him, that there was no way anything bad could ever befall her son, no matter how dark the world became and how much the forces of darkness gathered around them.

There was no one moment that she look back on and pinpoint as the moment when Ben had become something dark and evil. He had been a good child and then, suddenly, an embittered adolescent, and then, even more suddenly, a cold-hearted murderer with plans to kill them all. Leia could remember the stories Ben would babble as just a small kid who'd learned to talk, endlessly prevaricating over the same few points, the bird he'd seen, the squirrel he'd given a seed to, wasn't it amazing, while she nodded and asked him questions. She could remember him being so excited every time Han came back from one of his trips in the ship, running around screaming in excitement and tripping over Chewie's feet. He'd been a bright little kid.

She could remember his adolescent excitement when he'd first used the Force with her to communicate something, and his disappointment at being sent away to train with Luke. She'd been sure it was the right thing to do. She'd been sure. It was tempting to go trough every memory and see the origins of the evil that now existed, but Ben had been a thoroughly normal child. Leia could never have known what was to come.

As a teenager Ben had been different to others his age, but so would any teenager be whose parents were celebrated war heroes, whose uncle had the greatest power in the galaxy and who, himself, was beginning to manifest that same power. It was a lot of pressure to put on a kid. Ben had been a lonely teenager, not making friends with other kids with whom he had almost nothing in common, looking down on the other Jedi apprentices whom Luke picked up from all sorts of planets. Sometimes Leia spotted him looking back and forth between Luke and Han on one of their all-too-rare gatherings with something like disappointment or anger in his already-sad adolescent features.

"I'm kind of ugly, aren't I?" Ben had sighed to her once. He'd been in that awkward stage of growth and Leia had put off an evening meeting to brush his wild black hair out of his face. "I don't look like anybody else."

"You look like your grandma," Leia said soothingly. Thinking about the mother whom she'd never known made her think how difficult a thing it was to parent, how worrying, trying to juggle a son, being the General of an army, and running a planet. Her love for Ben, at least, came naturally. "She was a Queen, and people from all over the galaxy told me she was the most beautiful lady who ever lived, and your grandfather fell in love with her as soon as he met her. Did I ever tell you that story?"

Ben was still looking at himself in the mirror. "He killed her and became Darth Vader. Great story. Totally romantic."

"Oh, Ben," she said sadly. "At the end, he stopped being a bad man. He regretted the terrible things he'd done."

Ben didn't say what he was thinking, just kept looking at himself in the mirror with his impossibly dark, round brown eyes, and Leia, looking back on the memory decades later, had to stop herself from inventing some kind of dark, terrible internal monologue for him after the fact.

But what if she was misremembering it? What if Ben had said something to warn her, about his thoughts, about the Dark Forces which had already begun their assault on his mind? What if she'd ignored the signs, pathetically believing that her influence would be enough? Did she really understand how to withstand the Dark Side? She'd thought it was through the strength of the bonds with friends and family.

But Ben had never had any friends and in the end, he'd abandoned his family.

Leia doesn't mean to loiter in the doorway but the thought of speaking to Ben, of failing him again, terrifies her. She can't even begin to imagine broaching the subject of Han. It's too raw. Too soon. Too terrible to contemplate. And if she thinks about it too hard she'll never be able to look at Ben and love him or trust him ever again. And that's what she's being called to do right now. To believe, ultimately, in the power of the Light.

Ben is standing at the window with a hand on the shoulder of General Hux of the First Order. They are disconcertingly dressed like two ordinary men one might see on any street anywhere on the planet. Hux's face is a bloody mess from the altercation reported earlier. Leia would have said, had she been asked, that there was no way someone could do that to someone they loved. Hux looks like he's had his face smashed in. But what did Leia know of the First Order, the Dark Side, or indeed, of her own son?

Leia watches Hux smile, his straight features and pale hair washed colourless in the bright sunlight, and she watches Ben lean over him and kiss him. Their hands on each other's face. Ben's hair is longer than Leia remembers and it falls over Hux's face. They're whispering something to each other. Sweet nothings, perhaps. It's an obviously private moment.

What world has she stepped into, and how much worse can things become before they get better? Leia wishes more than ever that Han was nearby, that Luke was reachable by any method at all. She's never felt further out of her depth.

Leia should step away, return in five minutes, stop watching.

She does all that, eventually, but for now she will let her gaze linger for just a second longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OUTTAKE:

Leia: Ben, honey, were you gay this whole time, or is this a recent, Dark Side thing? Because honestly, I never saw this one coming!

Kylo: Mom, liking men is definitely not the biggest secret I kept from you as a tortured adolescent, okay? It's not even in the top ten. Leave me alone.

Leia: Well, Hux seems... like a nice boy.

Kylo: He's a fascist and a mass murderer. And strangely pale and rodent-like.

Leia: Which I'm guessing is great... if you like that sort of thing?


	5. Imprisonment

Over twenty-four hours of only being taken out for meals, calls of nature and endless interrogations, and Hux has finally been left alone.

Not that, of course, one is ever really alone when one is in a cell, the door bolted by one's enemy. 

Hux has been asked the same questions in endless iterations, relentlessly, hastily. The web of lies he's spun around his life, his allegiances and his association with Kylo Ren is close to breaking point. He can see them getting frustrated, each of the interrogators who faces him in the same dank little interrogation cell, the outdated little droid beeping obediently at their side. They are frustrated with his lies. They are frustrated with his icy calm under their gazes. They are frustrated with his smiling and his polite enquiries after their health. They are frustrated that he has not broken.

Hux is sure the real torture is going to begin soon. This might be the Resistance, but they're still a bloody army. They will do anything to win, even if they're not quite ruthless enough to ever have a hope in hell of defeating the might of the First Order.

Interestingly, they haven't bothered questioning Kylo Ren further after the first few silences. The Resistance must be too squeamish to start the torture on the General's son just yet. Or they're saving Kylo Ren's mind for some other purpose. This makes Hux's life both easier and more difficult. Easier in that he can spin any story he likes, and his version of events will not need to stand up alongside Kylo Ren's. But it's also too suspicious, too strange, for Kylo Ren to simply refuse to speak under pressure. He doesn't present the image of a man who has willingly joined the Resistance at all. He's acting like a man who's plotting to burn them all to the ground any day now, when help arrives.

Hux's intuition borne of years of military service tells him that the Resistance is waiting it out, hour by hour. Waiting for them to betray their cover stories. It's what Hux would do in their positions, just for the thrill of it, but they've underestimated exactly who he is and how far he is willing to go in the service of the First Order.

"We need to have sex." He's whispered this in Kylo Ren's ear and Kylo Ren snaps out of whatever trance he drifts into when nobody is speaking to him. He shoots Hux a look of pure disgust which twists his features into ugliness. Hux pulls Kylo Ren into the bed. They have a brief struggle about who's lying where, with Hux trying to wrestle Kylo Ren down and failing, instead getting pinned to the bed with the full weight of Kylo Ren on him, bodies aligned, Kylo Ren's breath hot on his face. "The idea doesn't appeal to me either, _but_ they're going to get suspicious. We can't just peck at each other like teenagers, for God's sake."

It's too dark to see Kylo Ren's face but Hux can tell from the tense quality of the silence that he's frowning.

"We're not blushing virgins, really."

Kylo Ren is silent. His breath is near enough for Hux to feel wafting across his face.

Hux is silent in response, until: “Never?”

"The Jedi reject all passion and attachment," Kylo Ren chants, like he's quoting some kind of scripture. "The Sith frown upon the merely animal base instincts as well. The Force sustains me on its own."

Hux chuckles, a grim sound. "How wonderful for you. We're still--" Kylo Ren kisses him and Hux suspects he's started doing it to shut Hux up, knowing that Hux will allow the continuation any activity which supports their cover stories. He pulls back with a gasp of air rushing into the inch of space between them. "At least you have a preference for men," he hisses.

Kylo Ren this close is all eyes and stubble and a long nose bumping his own. "You don't?" he murmurs neutrally, cocking his head in consideration. His voice sends little vibrations all the way down Hux's body from every inch that they're pressed together. "That's not what I remember from the Finalizer.”

"I have a wife." Hux sneers at himself after a moment for that pointless little protest, but it's left his lips now. "Back on the home planet. I plan to have children and carry on my esteemed family lineage after my distinguished career in the service of the First Order. You might not be familiar with the concept of a lineage worth preserving, being descended from Resistance scum.”

“Darth Vader was my grandfather.” Kylo raises an eyebrow. This close, Hux can practically feel the smirk which twists his lips.

“What’s wrong with your f--” They're kissing again. He becomes aware of the slick slide and the scrape of a day’s worth of stubble of Kylo Ren's mouth, the tang of his sweat, the weight of his long body, his bones and muscles, pinning Hux down, a single-minded application of pressure. Kylo Ren trails a series of scratchy, punishing bites down Hux's ear and neck. Hux jerks involuntarily at each one. He hates the way the Resistance's clothes allow access to so much skin, Hux thinks, arching a little, a hand going to Kylo Ren's backside to jerk their hips into alignment. Kylo Ren whips the blanket off them and Hux gasps in the cooler air.

Hux clambers on top of Kylo Ren and kisses him in earnest before pulling back to sit on top of Kylo Ren. He can already feel Kylo Ren's beginnings of an erection between the thin fabric between them. Kylo Ren looks neutrally at him depsite the wildly messy hair and just-kissed mouth. Despite his declaration, Hux hasn't thought about what is going where or who is doing what. He'd expected that they would both have their preferences and there would be a struggle and an argument and something would be worked out to the good of their cover stories, even if Hux himself didn't personally enjoy the proceedings. But now his blood is up and he can't break his gaze from Kylo Ren's as he undoes the drawstring on the man's thin trousers and slides himself down the bed. 

"Yes?" Kylo Ren runs a hand through his own hair, shakes it out, shrugs, nods.

Hux is just beginning to enjoy the incipient blowjob – the not unfamiliar taste and the thought that he's doing this to Kylo Ren of all the living creatures in the galaxy - when Kylo Ren begins to go soft. Hux tries to rescue it but he can't. Kylo Ren pushes his head away, an abrupt sullen feature, and lies flat on the bed. Hux shrugs, tucks him back into his trousers and lays down beside him.

"It's fine, it happens to plenty of people," he says after a short silence of wiping at his mouth. He says this into the meat of Kylo's shoulder, resting his forehead against him. The prison bed's not big enough for two men of their size: Hux’s other option is to fall right off the bed and spend the night on the hard metal floor, which is not preferable, even though he hates physical contact with his chosen bed partners when he’s trying to sleep. Not that Kylo Ren is anything like the people who chooses to sleep with, very occasionally. Kylo Ren is merely a man he finds deeply irritating, with whom he unfortunately plans to have at least some sex.

"I _know_ it’s fine," Kylo hisses through his teeth, shrugging Hux away with a violent motion of his shoulders. He's only successful in shifting them both about on the bed, its metal railings squeaking wildly. Hux knows for a fact that Kylo Ren can't keep his feet in the bed without the two of them practically curling around each other, but the man chooses to be a petulant child about the basic necessities of their current imprisonment.

"We could pretend," Hux ponders slowly. "That you're a celibate Jedi and you're saving yourself for marriage. It's even the truth, almost, nearly. Though I have been telling my charmingly considerate interrogators that we're long intimate." His eyes are falling shut on their own; being a prisoner is utterly exhausting. "Frankly, who can get in the mood with their mother and half her rebel army staring at them from behind bars?” A delicate shudder runs through Kylo's large frame. It's an oddly pleasurable sensation, all the muscle and skin he's wrapped around heating up so that he feels like he's sinking. “...I ask you.”

Hux drags a drowsy hand through Kylo's hair, which is tickling his nose and smells unfamiliar, something with pines and wood. Kylo reaches out, fast as lightning, and grabs his wrist tight. Squeezing strong enough to bruise for days. He doesn't let go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Resistance soldier is not one Hux recognises, but there’s so many of them. They come and go with their same silly expressions and badly made weapons and irregular uniforms that might as well just streetwear found on any market corner in the galaxy. This one is short and plain and neutral-faced like all the others, looking greedily at Hux's face when she's sent to order Hux to follow her up for a psychological evaluation at which the General will be present.

Torture, Hux thinks finally, almost welcoming it at this point. The soldier casts his face another long unblinking glance. The Resistance army has been fascinatingly mixed in its response to his presence here. He is their greatest adversary, but many of them stare at him like lunatics and break into hushed whispers if he's led past them. Even the professional interrogators sometimes lose track of their questions when he tells the story, again, of his fateful meeting with Kylo Ren and the endless nights of passon which resulted.

Passion, he thinks with a snort, feeling deathly tired. The soldier pauses and looks at him again. Hux scoffs mentally, resting his mind on the peaceful thought of his beloved Stormtroopers, their uniforms all alike, uniform in the true sense, their faces hidden, their identities erased, their allegiances wholly with the First Order, their senses sharp and their battle-readiness the best in the entire galaxy. A single well-armed battalian of troopers could blow this poorly-staffed ragtag bunch of backwater vermin apart with one well-placed strike. The very thought of pulling together the different units which could accomplish this gives him some peace and calm of mind. 

There is of course the matter of the rogue trooper. Hux feels his calm deflate, to be pierced by wordless irritation.

Hux follows the soldier, his back as straight as he can get it without rest, proper shoes or a uniform, down another unknown wide, high-ceilinged stone corridor. Despite his well-honed instincts and his years of dedicated battle experience, it's just slightly too late before he thinks that he really doesn't recognise this corridor at all, and isn't it rather dark right in this exact corner?

The soldier turns on him with a blaster pointed directly in his face.

"Ah," Hux begins, thinking,  _ah._  

She has him cornered right in a blind spot where there are no windows, no convenient doors, no easy path to run down. 

"This is justice for the dead, General Hux." Her voice is like a calm whip, spooling out rhythmically. "My family was in the city when Hosnian Prime fell." Her gaze is fierce and accusatory and she takes in the sight of him, her eyes nakedly greedy now. But perhaps sight of an injured man in plain clothes staring impassively back at her is not the sight she's been fantasising about since her family died.

One does not become a General by showing emotion to one's enemies. In any situation. Hux doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

"They died because of you!" she roars, her composure shattering. Her grip on her weapon remains unfortunately steady, not that Hux is in any position to try and close the prudent distance between them and surprise her.

"I know," Hux responds. He's hardly being conciliatory, but what's the point? He watches her eyes. Her body his shaking but her eyes are steady. It's always to be hoped that he won't die at the hands of some nameless Resistance nobody, but he's not liking his chances at the moment.

"You don't deserve to live, not when they’re all dead," she whispers. Her voice is abruptly dead. There are actual tears streaking down her face.

Hux pities her for her emotion, and her weakness, which is solely responsible for leading her to this pathetic state.

He's expecting her to witter on, but--

The first thing Hux thinks is that he really needs to stop getting into these sorts of situations.

The second thing he thinks is, simply, _pain_.

He realises he's faded out for a good few seconds because Kylo Ren is suddenly standing over him, a looming dark presence, and he's beating the living hell out of the rogue soldier. He's not even giving her a chance to use her blaster, just clinically smashing her head into the ground, over and over.

After a second of being relieved that he's no longer in imminent danger of being shot out of hand by Resistance scum, Hux blinks the pain out of his eyes and realises that Kylo Ren is killing a brave soldier of the noble Resistance, the same organisation they're trying to infiltrate with their not-so-fantastic cover stories about being Pathetic, Decent People At Heart.

"Kylo Ren! Don’t – Don’t kill people just because you’re angry! Kill them only if it fits with  _the plan!_ " His protest doesn't carry over the woman's wet, gulping screams. Hux crawls over, breathless over the wrenching burn in his arm that feels worse than it is. He's dodged out of the way enough not to have a hole in his chest. Good, that. Now he needs to try and stop Kylo Ren from killing anyone, including Hux himself. Not an easy thing at the best of times. 

Hux throws himself in harm's way, half-expecting to have his head cracked against the impassive stone and already bracing hisemf. Kylo stops his hand right before it connects with Hux, who flinches violently, because nobody can control their reflexes when faced with the same fool who's already punched them once in recent memory.

Low and ominous: "Move." Kylo Ren's eyes are livid, like he wants to drink someone's blood, unless that's just Hux's imagination speaking there.

Hux ignores him, and twists around painfully to see how the Resistance soldier is doing. She's not making any noise. Is she still moving? He has a horrible certainty she's dead, in which case, _so are they_. "You're a fucking idiot, Kylo Ren. Do you really have absolutely no control over yourself whatsoever? Control, Kylo Ren, have you heard of the concept? It's quite crucial in the field of warfare, you absolute dolt!" He's spitting with rage at the thought of being doomed because of Kylo's stupidity, again, another plan of incisive genius and galaxy-defining glory turned to ashes. "How the fuck are you even here?"

Kylo stares at him wildly, as if only just noticing him, like a thoroughly insane creature he is. His hair is wild around his face and he's not even wearing a shirt.

"I heard you shout."

The scene rearranges itself as Resistance soldiers finally pour in, drawn by the noise, and pin the two of them to the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"So you see, your soldier led me out of my cell under false pretences and threatened me with her weapon, as your own surveillance will testify, clearly stating her intention to murder me, an injured prisoner of war, in cold blood, before proceeding to follow through with such an act. Kylo Ren heroically escaped from the improperly shut cell to rescue me from this heinous act. I stopped him from killing the offending soldier in a completely unpredictable fit of thoughtlessness brought on by his ardent love for me. All is well."

Leia comes to stand sombrely next to her son, who immediately draws away and goes to stand at the head of the hospital bed to which Hux, formerly General of the First Order, has been returned following his most recent misadventure. His shoulder is now a mess of bloody bandages, though the damage, she hears, has not been severe. "She had three young children,” Leia counters, her voice colder than the frigid depths of space. Leia had known all of those young faces. “They, along with the rest of her family, were massacred in the attack on the New Republic."

"So I've--"

" _Your_ attack, which you by your own admission you personally devised, oversaw and carried out. _Your_ attack, which you instigated instantaneously and without warning, ignoring all of the accepted protocols of warfare known to this galaxy or any other.  _Your_ attack, which you successfully carried out against a civilian population of billions,  _billions_."

"--So I've been told," Hux finishes neutrally.

Leia can't help a flash of anger at the gall of this cowardly, pale-faced little man. She can't help but think it would be the greatest act of good of all, an act which might change the fate of the gakaxy, an act for the side of the Light in its purest form, if she were to throttle him where he lies. Let his usefulness be damned. Let his arrogance not go unpunished. Let the billions of the deaths she feels like a gaping hole in the fabric of the Force not go unavenged.

But that’s the Dark Side talking and she quells the urge with the practised ease of decades of experience, An ease she has mastered, but which her wayward, lost son — and she feels ashamed to even think of him as her progeny — has not. 

After an extended moment of increasingly tense silence, Hux reaches over and grabs Ben's hand, his own strangely white in Ben's scarred one. Ben looks even more uncomfortable than he already had been, his face turning upwards. Leia pointedly does not remember that exact expression running across his father's features. She does not. _She does not_. 

He murdered Han, she reminds herself. 

There's still Light in him, she reminds herself. 

Hux is smiling at Leia. It's like being leered at by a very colourless lizard. "Kylo Ren and I are learning to show affection in public. Our love has been constrained by years of secrecy under the First Order, you see."

Leia swears she catches the tail end of Ben rolling his eyes, but perhaps she imagined it. There's something a little too human in the gesture and she doesn't want to believe that either of these two particularly cruel monsters have any humanity left in them.

"Y'all can keep it constrained," Captain Wrexley quips, very quietly, behind them, but Leia and Officer Almira keep their faces straight.

Hux resumes his disconcerting habit of glancing between Leia and her son, who steadfastly avoid each other's gazes. He wears that same infuriating neutral expression on his face.

"General Hux, I commend you in your efforts to obstruct your comrade's... overzealous defence." It's like ashes in her mouth, commending this monster for anything, but from the reports from the first medical aid on the team, from Hux, and from the soldier herself, without Hux's intervention Ben would certainly have committed yet another murder. Even without the Force now taken from him by the weapon they've attached to each of his wrists, her son has grown to be a large man. She wonders how much of the man there is left in a monster that can carelessly bludgeon a person to death. Or, in a man who chokes the person he's supposed to love to near-death.

Leia swallows against the sudden unbidden comparisons that rise to the forefront of her mind.

That's always been the problem between her and her son. He reminds her of everyone; he reminds her of no-one. He's got a little bit of all of his family in him, the Dark Side and the Light, Vader, but also Leia. Only he can make the decision between them. Nobody else can make that choice for him. 

Hux gets her attention. "I'm no General, General. But I would not wish any harm to come to any soldier of the noble Resistance if I could stop it."

He's still holding Ben's hand. Leia hadn't realised she'd been fixating on that eerie point of contact until she notices Ben's grip tightening and Hux's hand going a painful bone-white, though the expression on his face remains as militarily neutral as ever.

She continues. "While I regret this attack on your person in the heart of the Resistance, I cannot apologise for the sentiment behind my soldier's actions. You are both war criminals and the Resistance intends to treat you as such.” It's not quite the truth, but it's the version of the truth that she will allow them to hear for now. Let them stew a little longer and feel a little bit of the terror they've induced in so many others.

"I understand," Hux says finally. "But I'd prefer not to be killed by a stray rebel with a blaster before I can actually help the Resistance, which is in fact what I came here to do, if it's all the same."

"To that end," Officer Almira interjects. "We are bringing forward the official debrief between General Hux and the full complement of our head council. It’ll be in two hours. We wish to hear the information you have on the First Order. We imagine it's quite extensive. And we're going to be very interested in verifying your information for ourselves."

Hux nods, his face completely wiped of all inflection. "Understood."

Leia and her officers depart, and she does not look back at where Hux and her son remain. Hux stretched out on that gurney and her son stood over him, bent a little to accommodate the hand pulling him down. She doesn't have to turn, she doesn't have to look, she doesn't have to even reach out with the Force, to know that the two of them are already bent together, whispering quietly toeach other once again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments! They've been so motivating! I really appreciate it :) My entire week has been devoted to Kylux...


	6. Kylo Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I have plans for that trooper," Hux says mildly.

 

"Open that."

The two cadets stationed either side of the ordinary-looking cell door jump to attention. They bring their weapons around at glacial speed. They hadn’t expected this, not in the middle of the night. They're not trained, they've never been in battle. They can’t see his face clearly in this light.

Finn, who’s spent his military career looking out through a black visor, steps forward so they can get a good look at him, and the weapon he’s aiming at the door as well. They stiffen and there’s a moment of silence. He repeats the order, slower. Resistance cadets aren’t even as closed to well-trained as the average trooper. They obey instead of shooting him on sight. Probably, they care about accidentally shooting a friendly. That hadn’t been a major concern in the First Order. It’s obvious they recognise him from whatever stories have gone around since he fell into his damn coma. The one that isn’t keying in the code for the door is gaping slack-jawed at him as she's on the verge of asking him a bunch of excited questions.

Finn has woken up to a brilliant new world of softly-trained cadets and the dream he’d never thought would become real has been invaded by beings from the nightmare that he perhaps knew he’d never escape. _The First Order_ , he’d told them, he’d told them all, he’d told them so many times. _You can’t beat the First Order. All you can do is run the hell away as far and as fast as you can._

Rumours have been going around between the soldiers for days now, but Finn has only just woken up.

He hasn’t had time to yell from the rooftops about how wrong everyone is about this absurd story, that the General of the First Order has defected from its side. Finn knows General Hux  as well as any of the other troopers. He knows how ruthless he is. How little he tolerates failure. How single-mindedly he strategises for the success of the First Order and the downfall of the New Republic. How bloodthirsty he is. How much he has personally invested into the success of the Order. Perhaps the Resistance top brass doesn’t quite realise it as personally as Finn does. There’s no way this same man has decided to join the Resistance. That part is crazy enough.

The part where Kylo Ren, the masked maniac who'd tried to kill Finn and then Rey just a few days ago, is Leia Organa’s son? The part where he’s been seen walking hand in hand with Hux, kissing him whenever they get a moment alone like a pair of newlyweds? That part’s so nuts it's almost funny.

Finn’s only had time to ditch the embarrassing hospital clothes for real ones and fish out Poe’s jacket from his personal locker. He doesn’t quite safe in these corridors without it, or the weapon he's grabbed other, even though he's in the stronghold of the Resistance.

Nothing’s a stronghold against the First Order.

He knows that personally.

The door swings open with a silent yawn. Finn storms in and commands the lights on.

It's dark in the room. He’d heard that they’ve moved the prisoners from a cell to something resembling actual simple quarters, in deference to the fact that the Resistance actually buys their cover story and considers the two of them allies. That had caused a stir amongst the troops. Finn sees a bed, a little table, a door that’s closed, for the bathroom. There’s Kylo Ren on the bed with the blankets in disarray. His face is an angry rictus and the scar down his face stands out lividly. Rey must have put that there. Finn nearly flinches before he realises he’s not about to be Force-choked or lightsabered to death and trains his weapon steadily, eyes flicking back and forth, casing the room.

General Hux is nowhere to be seen.

“He’s escaped!” Finn hollers. “We need to find him before he—“

“Kylo Ren, _what the hell_ \-- Oh." The voice which interrupts has clipped, precise vowels and is horribly, starkly familiar. Finn feels his guts twist.

He’s horrified to see General Hux's ginger head emerge from the blankets balled up in Kylo Ren's lap. Hux’s typically fanatically neat hair is in disarray, and he's wiping slowly at his mouth with the back of his hand, not that Finn needs any more demonstration of what’s going on here. Kylo Ren’s face becomes determinedly neutral. Hux is on top of him—Oh god, stop thinking about this, Finn commands himself in absolutely horror.

Hux glances steadily at Finn and the two gobsmacked cadets, now second-guessing their assumption that Finn was here for official purposes.

Hux combs a hand through his stringy hair in a way that makes it even messier. His eyes slide up to Finn and he holds Finn’s gaze for a long, predatory moment.

“FN-2187.” Hux’s toad-like pallid face breaks into a reptilian grin. “At last.”

Finn’s weapon dips. There’s a sudden sound of a step behind him.

"And dear General Organa! May I help you?” Hux sounds for all the world like he’s invited them for a private gathering at the command deck of his ship and is enquiring after their drink of choice.

Kylo Ren covers his crooked face with his hands.

"Nothing to concern yourself with," General Leia says stonily. Finn freezes. "Finn, out. Now."

Finn gulps as they make a hasty exit and follows the General back up the corridor, hanging his head. The door swings closed. He hopes he imagines more than feels Hux’s stare at the back of his head.

He's not sure if he's ever going to get the horrifying scene he's just witnessed out of his head, but he's also more confused than ever. Even with the evidence of his own eyes, he still can't believe what he's seen. It doesn’t make any kind of sense in any logical world he’s ever inhabited.

"Had enough of your meddling, Finn?" The General asks dryly. Finn nods, rubbing at his hair despondently. “You just countermanded my direct orders and interfered with my prisoners. Now, this is not the First Order, so you’ll get nothing more than a warning from me. I can well imagine your objections. But this must not happen again.”

Finn growls under his breath in frustration, cursing his ability to _explain_ what he viscerally understands, to try and make it sound like sense to people who’ve never lived in the First Order and grew up in a free world. "General, I know the First Order inside and out and I just know that there’s no way... I know better than anyone in the Resistance that… that... this whole idea is ridiculous! Don’t tell me you believe them?” He gestures wildly behind them.

The corridor is dark and General Organa is smaller than ever at this late hour. She’s wearing her simple uniform, looking like she came straight from her desk. Her two personal guards are much bigger and they stare down their noses at Finn, unmoved. “Finn…” Leia sighs, crosses her arms, shakes her head. “I admit it may seem illogical at first, but so many things which are true are so.” Finn tries to object again. She adds pointedly “Do you believe the evidence of your own eyes?”

Finn wishes he could put a blaster to his head and burn away the evidence of his own eyes. “I could have sworn... I just don't know. Hell. I still don't trust them.”

The General nods, turns her serious brown eyes away. She’s looking back down the corridor and her thoughts are inscrutable. "I will always allow the young people under my leadership to follow their intuition, Finn. Especially you. We need people like you more than ever in this fight against the First Order, and the Dark Side. But please, until you have hard evidence, keep your suspicions limited to yourself and those you trust. I cannot allow such a lack of discipline or dissent to run rampant amongst the Resistance, not when our new victory is so… fragile. Get some rest, Finn.”

He’s dismissed without a further word, watching Leia march down the corridor trailed by her guards.

Finn looks at the weapon in hands, the jacket he’s wearing. He knows he belongs. He knows it in his head, and he knows it in his heart. But he’s wondering whether perhaps there’ll always be this distance which he can't seem to cross, no matter how hard he tries… Enough. He shakes his head and makes his way back to his rooms and his friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I have plans for that trooper," Hux says mildly. Kylo Ren watches the back of his head as he looks at the door a few moments longer. The bolts on the door re-engage with a loud clang that sounds like defeat. He looks at Kylo Ren. "That was close."

"That was stupid," he growls, shoving Hux bodily off him. Hux grabs him before he can be thrown off and they tussle until Hux is returned to his side of the bed. Kylo hates even thinking of it as Hux’s side, but that’s what it is. Has become. Temporarily.

Being cut off from the Force is completely addling his wits.

Hux is still wearing the canvas trousers he'd been unable to tear off in the second's warning they'd had to leap under the covers after hearing the voices outside. Hux had slipped down beneath the blankets before Kylo could stop him, to his anger.

Hux stretches like a particularly pleased cat. This is how Kylo sees Hux now: in domestic metaphors which are overly familiar but already ingrained.

Gone is the straight-backed sycophant with the perpetually pressed faceless uniform, his General’s cap perpetually affixed to his smirking head, carping and complaining about his petty little plans for his little army.

Instead Kylo Ren has Hux: arrogant, too talkative by half, rather stupid, the exact colour of his blue-white translucent skin difficult to determine, his coppery hair, the sheen of his fingernails, his tongue when it darts out to lick his lips and his eyes when they gleam in satisfaction, a thousand other little tics of behaviour and body. Kylo wishes he could have the faceless simpleton back. There’s too much sensory input from this new person who has suddenly switched in to replace him. Kylo doesn’t enjoy this one bit but there’s been no way to escape it, shackled and imprisoned as he humiliatingly is.

"That, Kylo Ren," Hux drawls, "was brilliant spur-of-the-moment strategic thinking.” Hux's little sneer of a smile exposes pointed teeth on either side of his mouth. Hux has oddly straight, even teeth. Kylo has not dedicated much time in his existence to the oddity of humans. It has generally been beneath him. Hux's oddities stand out in far too much detail, now. There's that voice, familiar now. Hux's voice is patrician in accent, unique amongst the rounded commoner’s vowels of everyone around him, frequently gloating, a little grating but ultimately bearable. “Not that there’s anything wrong with sitting ignoring each other on either side of this irritating little room, but it doesn’t really send the right message, does it?" Kylo watches Hux bite his bottom lip thoughtfully and his eyes twitch towards the door again. Hux commands the lights back down.

Kylo replays the scene that just occurred and puts his hands back over his face. "I will die of humiliation before I ever have the chance to get out of this place and _burn it to the ground_."

Hux barks in laughter and shakes the rickety old bed a little. Kylo growls. “You played the horrified innocent in front of your dear mother! Except perhaps it wasn't pretence, which was the most entertaining aspect of it.” Hux grins up at the ceiling from where he’s lying down. The tension of his bare shoulders is somehow expectant.

Kylo does not enjoy lying down beside him when they’re both awake. It’s too intimate of a gesture, the two of them lying side by side, and not just side by side but actually touching because the bed is too small for either of them, especially for Kylo Ren, who finds himself curling around Hux awkwardly, trying not to make skin contact but trying to stay under the meagre blanket.

Hux seems to have experienced no similar discomfort. He touches Kylo with reckless, sloppy abandon, as if unaware that for the last few years Kylo has been the bloodthirsty masked monster who frequently chokes Hux's underlings to death before his very eyes.

It’s an itch Kylo can’t scratch, not having the mask to cover his merely human face, not being able to read Hux’s mind and have insight into the truth of what's happening. Relying on Hux’s scheming little speeches and plans, which contain more effect than truth, is far from satisfactory. Hux is too comfortable in this absurd little lie they’ve ensconced themselves in with the Resistance. Just the reminder of this latest humiliation, which is directly Hux's fault, makes Kylo Ren want to press his hands to Hux’s neck and crush his windpipe. Yearning echoes faintly through him and the image brings a small amount of comfort to his grated nerves. He's been without a kill for too long.

“—may have been the icing on the cake," Hux is cackling. His hand is creeping up Kylo’s leg. "Look, I’m going to sleep, unless you want to—“

"Meditate," Kylo Ren grunts, tense. He gives into the urge for violence and shoves Hux’s side out of his personal space. "The call of the Light is too strong.”

“I thought you couldn’t feel the Force.” Hux rolls right back onto his pillow and plants himself there, an annoying, irritating, buzzing, heavy, solid _weight_ on Kylo’s space and thoughts.

“You understand nothing of the workings of the Force.” His mind feels like it’s about to snap right in two.

Hux rolls on his side and looks at him. What is he seeing? It’s disconcerting to have to look at the man's facial expressions to guess at the play of his thoughts. His face is too close, his features too large, his breath too near, his eyes a too-pale colour like the sky above Starkiller Base on a fine dawn after some good, clean executions.

Kylo still, despite being accustomed to it, finds proximity to Hux disturbing. The man's mouth is red and wet where he bites his lip to hide a growing smirk. "We could get up to things far worse than that dear old woman would ever suspect.” Hux’s voice is low and hungry, but not with lust. Just the ability to make Kylo feel like an idiot. Hux's eyes drop to Kylo’s mouth.

Kylo feels something dark and cruel emerging in him when Hux tilts up and touches their mouths together. He presses Hux's shoulder down into the bed and climbs on top of him, pinning him down firmly by the shoulders, pressed deep into the hard mattress. His full weight on top of Hux: no way the other man can move, no avenue for his escape. Hux is pinned by his mouth too.

Perhaps this is why the pretence with Hux, the foolish mummery they've been presenting to the Resistance, has worked. Hux brings out the worst in Kylo Ren, and allows him to keep the Light at bay and the Dark within him satisfied. The man is just so infernally irritating, so calculating and deeply wicked. It’s almost enjoyable in the anger it brings out in Kylo with each passing hour.

He breaks the kiss just a fraction to watch Hux’s face go blotchy red with lust and with lack of breath. It's mildly amusing, to watch these puny little mortals and their predictable little reactions.

Hux bares his teeth, each one a strange gleaming square. Kylo runs tongue over them. He doesn’t really understand how humans can enjoy things like sexual activity. It’s disgusting when considered from a logical standpoint: unclean bodily fluids mixing and the pathetic lack of control of passions and emotions. Kylo Ren bits Hux’s lips and chokes Hux with his tongue. Hux gags and goes breathless with wide, dark pupils in his too-pale face. Interesting.

Kylo pulls away just enough to survey Hux’s skin under the dim light. So much of it and so unmarked, unlike Kylo’s own pockmarked, spotted, and scarred flesh, burned in some places, tanned in others. Hux has the skin of a well-fed pampered nobleman, Officer-class since the day he joined the army, never lifting a finger to do battle. He has the eerily ghostly skin of a man who has lived years at a stretch in space, never feeling the light of a star on his uncovered skin. Kylo sinks his teeth Hux's bare shoulder, going deep until he can feel the skin on the verge of splitting under his teeth. Hux stutters and jerks against his mouth but he can’t get away: nowhere to go. The bite leaves a round mark which draws blood up from somewhere deep to the surface of Hux's shivering skin before turning a bony white. He can hear Hux’s strange breathing and the way his body pushes back against Kylo’s, the violence of the grip he has to maintain on the other man.

Kylo tilts Hux's jaw away from him and slides his teeth over Hux's jugular and bites hard enough to draw blood. Kylo can taste Hux's almost-sweet salty skin, smell the musk of his sweat and feel Hux's pulse jumping under his tongue. He is heady with the power of having the other man's very lifeblood in his control, ready to do with as he wishes. He envisions tearing out Hux's throat with his teeth, a predator over prey. Hux submits so easily, Kylo thinks, and so unquestioningly. Kylo doesn’t need the Force to understand every facet and iota of this man, blood, skin and teeth. Hux doesn't have a complicated bone in his body. He was made for the structure of the First Order, for a world where he is ruled and commanded and restrained so utterly.

Kylo licks at the bite mark he's left and Hux thrashes hot under his tongue. He’s a white surface begging to be despoiled, broken, choked. Hux is grasping Kylo's sides with strong arms and grinding their bodies together. Kylo realises he’s erect and pressing his hips between Hux’s legs. Desire pincers its way through his thoughts. Their clothes are too thin. It feels like they’re naked already, halfway there. It’s unbearable.

Hux catches his breath back after a few moments, enough to speak. “Don’t stop.” His hand grasps Kylo’s hip firmly against his own, a strong unmoving grip.

Kylo swallows and studies his face, pressing their foreheads together. He can taste Hux’s hurried breaths and see the blue and green pattern of the veins winding under Hux's skin. Hux's body is strong and tense under Kylo's, impossibly hot. They’re soaked in each other’s sweat and musk. Hux tilts his head as if instinctively, his eyes drifting shut and his teeth baring. They share another hot-slick kiss that makes Kylo feel as if he’s lost control of where he is. Who he is. What’s right. What’s wrong. He can’t bear to look at Hux’s face this close anymore.

He’s so lost without the guidance of the Supreme Leader. So prone to falling into something so diseased, so human. He needs the armoured hand guiding him the right way, always. He needs to say a prayer to his grandfather and call for the power in his blood to take him back to the way of strength. He needs to make supplication.

Kylo thinks it would be an insignificant thing to strip both of them of their clothes and agitate their bodies together in a sexual act. It would be merely curious, merely interesting, merely a distraction from the boredom. It would be the easiest thing in the world, so simple. Such a tiny little act. 

When Kylo opens his eyes back up, Hux's strange eyes tremble left and right, studying Kylo's face. Kylo cannot see what Hux thinks he's seeing there, not from his guarded, tight features. He supposes Hux would tell him in a long and wordy manner, if he were to ask.

Kylo doesn’t know much about sex. He doesn’t think much about it. The Supreme Leader had helped him train himself out of such base things. When he was young, he’d believed himself special for his total lack of interest in romantic attachment. That was the way of the Jedi, he knew. (And the Sith, Snoke would whisper helpfully.) Until he’d found that the thing he felt towards other boys was, after all, the thing he'd dreaded so deeply. The attraction of the face or body of a mere mortal, the way humans placed such beauty above godliness. The pathetic vulnerability of the human soul in love. The humiliating yearning and pining. The way humans memorialised it all in song and poetry. The entire charade was a foul weakness to be excised, he quickly realised. (Except for reproduction, which was ultimately necessary for the continuation of the Empire as a population, but what caught Kylo’s interest was never going to lead to children. Thank fuck.)

Hux stares hard into his eyes and pushes Kylo Ren’s shoulders down. Kylo's mimicking Hux’s actions the other day, undoing the cords of his simple linen pants and pulling his erection free. Kylo Ren has never looked at another man’s dick before. It’s different to his own, pinker and a different size, odd from this angle and a strange texture under his hand. When he puts his mouth to it Hux actually shouts in surprise, or perhaps pleasure. Occasionally Hux’s rapid grunts, or the panted little commands (“My balls,” or “Suck, _yes_ ”, or finally, "Fuck me, fuck me") which Kylo mostly ignores, send a spike of hot lust down to Kylo’s aching dick but he pushes it away with a mindless focus on the task at hand. He has to keep stopping to take a breath, coughing a little. Hux is gaping up at the ceiling, trying to move his hips from where Kylo Ren has him clamped in place, trying to thrust his dick into Kylo's mouth in tight little back-and-forth motions. Breathing through his nose. His own hand over his mouth but Kylo can still hear him making all that noise.

Kylo bites the vulnerable inside of Hux’s muscled thigh, which is dusted in the lightest transparent golden hair, so different to Kylo's own skin. Hux tries to kick him but Kylo pins his knee with a firm grip and does it again, picking the most sensitive looking spot this time, just at the crease of thigh and hip, holding Hux’s erection out of the way with his other hand. He likes the way Hux makes a little involuntary scream of pain and the way he can taste blood, now. He goes back to the task at hand. Hux pulls at his hair rather violently and climaxes, which looks both messy and painful and makes Kylo tense, almost coming himself before he catches his thoughts. Hux lies there panting with an expression as if he’s been electrocuted.

Kylo bites again for good measure and can taste the blood thick this time. Hux moans, low, defeated, a sad sound. There's a long duration of quiet during which Hux has perhaps fallen asleep and Kylo rolls back to his pillow and tries to meditate away his own arousal. “I need to clean myself up,”  Hux says unnecessarily, finally, voice faint, and drags his unco-operative limbs out of bed. Kylo Ren wipes his mouth from all the stuff smeared on it, rolls over, and lets his thoughts drift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kylo Ren wakes up too soon, his now-soft cock aching strangely and his whole head heavy with the familiarity of not enough sleep. Pain zings through his wrists. Hux is a heavy and uncomfortable hot weight clamped to his side. He smells of soap and strange water. Kylo considers pushing him out of the bed onto the floor like he’s done a few times before, but the fuss that Hux kicks up in his screeching tones make it hardly worthwhile.

Kylo combs through Hux's copper hair instead. It’s tickling his shoulder and he’s just trying to brush it out of the way. He can feel Hux's deep regular breaths rising and falling. He must be deep in some kind of dream, perhaps, Kylo thinks, imagining where he is now unable to simply take thoughts, perhaps seeing himself as Emperor of some tiny backwater planet, the inhabitants crowning him and bowing to his every whim. Bringing him fruit and offerings. Gathering to listen to his sycophantic little speeches. Hux’s simian face is utterly still. How heroic he imagines himself to be.

Here it is again, the Light, in Kylo Ren's every desire to touch and observe and understand. In his failures. In his weaknesses. His attachments. His strange, disgustingly corporeal curiosities.

Kylo doesn’t sleep. He’s been having dreams he can't wake from, about his father, dreams where he's killed him, nightmares where he's still alive somewhere. Dreams of the touch of his large hand on a young forehead. Some part of him, the Light in him, a part he won’t repeat the name of because it disgusts him, _that_ part mourns the innocence of the worshipful love that only the very young boy can feel, and only for his father. The simplicity and the comfort it brought to feel such certainty.

That so-called love isn't something Kylo Ren feels any more, nor does he believe it was ever a real thing separate from the pathetic deluded fantasy in which it was caught, but the vestiges of its memory are the keystone to what's left of his humanity. Killing Han Solo should have cut it all out like the surgical removal of a cancer, leaving only the pure untainted cells, the strong ones, fit for his mighty purpose. But he's not strong like he should be, and he doesn't feel less, but more.

Look at General Hux. The attachment between them is false in every sense of the world, yet here he is, just a few days into captivity, clinging to the man. Touching his body. Becoming familiar. Becoming implicated. It's a very human failing. The thing he despises most about himself. Hux sighs in his sleep against Kylo’s chest. Kylo Ren revisits the lovely fantasy of gently fitting his hands around Hux's well-formed throat and choking the life out of him, making it quick, not even leaving enough time for Hux to realise what was happening. He would die, Kylo calculates, with this exact look of unknowing stillness on his face, the sightless expression of a beautiful statue.

Would Kylo grieve this man’s death too, and wake up tracing his familiar features in the dead of the night?

He likes to imagine that he'd never think of this errant, cunning, ludicrous, pathetic man ever again, but he'd thought the same of Han Solo, once. 

Hux doesn't answer Kylo’s unspoken question except to open his almost colourless eyes, something Kylo has noticed he does when he's very deeply asleep. Kylo allows Hux to settle himself more firmly against his body. Hux's hair is terribly soft and fine where Kylo rests his cheek on it.

He's never been close with another person. Not physically, not spatially, not mentally, and especially not in the minefield of emotions. Not since he left his parents and adopted the Supreme Leader as his only father, which is a different kind of closeness, a whip leading him down the correct path. Not since the Force gave him insight into the pathetic base nature of every human. 

Hux is just an ordinary human to whom he's temporarily grown attached due to the unusual situation they've been thrown in together. It's the overwhelming pressure of the Resistance driving them, literally, into each other arms. They have nobody else: a certain temporary familiarity was inevitable, easily foreseen, easily calculated, easily discarded, surely. Even though Kylo Ren can analyse the situation he's in from all different angles and understand with perfect logic the errors which have led to his current state of affairs, he can't seem to cancel out the actual emotions which arise from any of it. Which means.

He doesn't know what it means, but it's nothing good.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited earlier chapters. Thanks for sticking this one out, guys. You're amazing :)


End file.
